AZATHOTH'S DREAM are a brand-new entity hailing from the United States. On one hand, the one-man band's sound is undeniably late '90s French vintage, maintaining a similarly necrotic-yet-aristocratic mysticism not unlike Osculum Infame, Bekhira, Winter Funeral, and very early Seth. On the other, one could liken AZATHOTH'S DREAM to the uprising of raw vampiric black metal in the U.S., spearheaded by Sanguine Relic and Geist of Ouachita among others. Either way, one listen to the aptly titled Nocturnal Vampyric Bewitchment and one will be indeed bewitched by the band's melancholic-yet-feral spell...or duly repulsed by it. There's no other way; just like those stratifying days of the 1990s, you either understand this as BLACK METAL - and stand with it - or you stand against it. It matters not to AZATHOTH'S DREAM: the empty castle's drawbridge is down, and one need only enter if the spirits are willing.

Edition of 97